Independence Day

No, not the holiday, the movie :-)

It's one most people have seen, yet still I cannot stop myself from taking this opportunity to write about it, for it has it all ... creepy aliens, government conspiracies (Area 51), romance, Apple computers (you guys aren't PC users, are you?), pathos and self-sacrifice, and a lot of actors I like ... Bull Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, and best of all, Brent Spiner (Data!). as a slightly mad scientist.

Wikipedia writes ...

ndependence Day (or ID4) is an American science fiction movie about an attempted alien takeover of Earth .... The world is in shock on July 2 as an alien ship stated to be about one quarter the mass of the moon and over 550 kilometres in diameter enters the Earth's orbit and deploys several smaller ships, each one over fifteen miles in diameter, that settle over many of the world's major cities. Using advanced technology, the aliens destroy these cities along with millions of people. Conventional missiles and nuclear weapons are useless against them, as the alien ships are strongly shielded by impenetrable force fields. The President of the United States, a veteran fighter pilot of the Gulf War, leads the human resistance from Area 51, where the military has kept an alien fighter spacecraft that crash-landed in the 1950s, to ultimate victory over the invading aliens. The movie climaxes on July 4 as the humans use the alien fighter to infiltrate the mothership, activating a computer virus to disrupt the aliens' shields, and sneaking a nuclear missile aboard. The disruption of the shields opens a window of opportunity for humans to strike back and destroy the smaller alien ships and fighter craft. During the counterattack, an American volunteer pilot flies his jet into the path of an alien ship as it is deploying its primary beam weapon, which causes it to crash. Task forces around the world use the same tactic to destroy the rest of the alien battleships, ultimately saving Earth.

The movie did not get good reviews ... it was a bit jingoistic and obvious ... and Roger Ebert's assessment of the film was not pretty ...

... Independence Day'' is not just an inheritor of the 1950s flying saucer genre, it's a virtual retread ....Representing the human race here are not only David the techhead and the president, but also assorted blacks, Jews, Arabs, Brits, exotic dancers, homosexuals, cute kids, generals, drunken cropdusters, tight-lipped defense secretaries and `The McLaughlin Group.' There is not a single character in the movie who doesn't wear an invisible label .... As the president readies Earth's response, it is clear much will depend on a jerry-built solution by David, whom Goldblum plays as a hemming and hawing genius. His plan, after he devises it, depends on fighter ace Steven Hiller (Will Smith) for its delivery. But what Goldblum comes up with, I cannot reveal. No, I insist. I only observe that it is a wonder these aliens have traveled across uncounted light-years of space and yet have never thought of a computer virus protection program. (My theory is that any aliens who could be taken in by this particular plan probably arrived here after peddling across space on bicycles.)
- read Ebert's whole review here

Oh well, flawed as the movie might have been, it was still fun and didn't take itself too seriously. And that factor does matter in aliens-taking-over-the-world movies ... think back to Tom Cruise and The War of the Worlds and you'll know what I mean :-)


- Brent Spiner, Bill Pullman and James Rebhorn